Shouldn't Al Gore Know That Everyone Is A Journalist These Days?

from the ban-everyone! dept

Al Gore, who, last we checked had founded a "citizen journalism"-based TV channel and internet site, has apparently told the RSA conference that one of the terms of his keynote speech at the event is that no press are allowed (and no photographs or audio or video recording either). That may have made sense years ago, but in this day and age, where everyone is a "reporter" and everyone has an outlet, it seems rather ridiculous to even think that you can ban "press," let alone make it a clause in a speaking agreement. Last year, the same event drew 17,000 people. You have to figure that a decent number of them have blogs, social networking pages, Twitter accounts and whatnot -- and a very high percentage probably have mobile phones with cameras on them as well (and, of course, it doesn't hurt that CNET appears to be offering to give people a free fleece for taping the event). Sorry, Mr. Vice President, even if you ban them, the press will be attending your talk.

Reader Comments

just as it seems

I think VP Gore will accomplish exactly what he means to by doing this. I believe Gore trusts the bloggers, the "citizen journalists", the geeks with Myspace pages a lot more than he trusts the supposed "professional" journalists that set out to destroy his candidacy in 2000 by allowing the Religious Right to set the agenda and to propagate its talking points throughout the campaign.

By focusing on his "inventing the internet" (which he never said) or his "earth tones" (which was more bullshit), etc., instead of looking honestly at the kind of recycled Nixonian criminals that were making every effort to steal the 2000 election (and eventually, with teh help of the Supreme Court, did just that), the "professional media" showed themselves to be the tools of authoritarian corporatism.

I don't blame him one bit. Gore is a lot smarter than people give him credit for and he's certainly savvy regarding the "new media". He knows exactly what he's doing. He intends to keep the mainstream press out while knowing that the bloggers will certainly get in.